Global weekly transaction volume on Bitsquare’s decentralized platform is gradually picking up, as the latest figures from Coin.Dance show. However, there is still a long way to go when compared to Bitcoin’s largest online trading marketplace, LocalBitcoins. LocalBitcoins is an open-source desktop application that allows the trading of Bitcoins for national or alternative cryptocurrencies, which recently hit a global average of $32,000 weekly volume in the week of Dec. 10. The weekly volume in Europe has the record for the highest amount of transactions – about €40,000. This did not come as a surprise to the platform, according to a statement made to Cointelegraph, because people are uncovering the potential of its app and they want to support it as an open-source project with huge potential. OpenBazaar and BitMarkets mirror Bitsquare’s principles, however, BitSquare maintains that no other project fits its definition of a decentralized Bitcoin exchange. Decentralized Bitcoin exchanges Regarding what has changed or is changing in the user’s perspective that is drawing their interest to the platform, Bitsquare’s Ken Shishido says: “We are seeing more hacks on centralized exchanges and regulatory environments in some parts of the world are forcing exchanges to turn some of their customers away. …

In the wake of inching closer to its 2016 peak, CoinDance indicates that the worldwide weekly volume of popular P2P Bitcoin marketplace, LocalBitcoins, reached a new all-time high on record USD volumes last week with five countries – USA, Malaysia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Sweden – recording all-time highs within the same period. LocalBitcoins CEO Nikolaus Kangas says: “It was certainly one of the busiest weeks on our platform ever.” The highest price of the top digital currency this year stands at $763.33 in June. Last week, the price reached $720.29, the closest to the peak rate for the year so far. As may be expected of the five countries, Venezuela recorded the highest leap due to the worsening economic situation in the country which may have compelled the people to seek an alternative means to earn, send and receive money for their use outside the use of traditional banking institutions. Users follow price rise Though Nikolaus Kangas did not confirm the claim as a “100 percent technical fact,” the illustration shows the volume on the platform that facilitates over-the-counter trading of local currency for Bitcoin reached $15.9 mln as on Oct. 29, 2016. “I cannot say that it is 100 …